Anitere Flores (born September 8, 1976 in Miami, Florida) is a Republican member of the Florida Senate, a body in which she represents the 38th District. Her district of almost 500,000 residents includes Kendall, Westchester, Fontainebleau, and portions of Southwest Miami-Dade County in South Florida. Senator Anitere Flores was sworn in as the State Senator on November 16, 2010. She is the first Republican Hispanic woman to serve in both the Florida House and Senate since 1986.[1]

After law school, Senator Flores was hired by the Florida House of Representatives to work on the Education Council, and later worked for Governor Jeb Bush as his Education Policy Chief. Then in 2004, Flores decided to run for the Florida House of Representatives, District 114.

Anitere Flores served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2004 to 2010.

Flores was first elected to the Florida House of Representatives to represent District 114, after defeating Carlos A. Manrique in the Republican Primary (55.5% to 18.6%) and Democrat Millie Herrera (64.4% to 35.6%) in the General Election on November 2, 2004.[2]

Flores was then subsequently re-elected with no opposition in 2006 and 2008.

During her career in the Florida House, she served as Deputy Majority Leader for the 2008-2010 term.[3] Also, as State Representative, she served as the Chair of the PreK-12 Appropriations Committee and the PreK-12 Policy Committee.

In 2010, Flores decided to run for the District 38, State Senate seat that was being vacated by Senator J. Alex Villalobos due to term limits. She went on to defeat David Nelson (nearly 81% to 19%) in the Republican primary[4] and later Democrat, Les Gerson (68.2% to 31.8%) in the General Election on November 2, 2010.[5]

As a member of the Florida Senate, Senator Flores was named Majority Whip[6] while also serving as the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In addition, Senator Flores sits on the Budget Committee, Budget Subcommittee on Education PreK-12 Appropriations, Commerce and Tourism Committee, Communications, Energy, and Public Utilities Committee, Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee, Reapportionment Committee, and Rules Committee.

In 2011, Senator Anitere Flores worked with her colleagues to introduce a Florida style immigration law focusing on ensuring that Florida has a legal workforce and working with the federal government to repatriate undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of crimes and are in prison. These 5,500 individuals cost the state of Florida over $100 million each year to incarcerate.[7]

On April 4, 2011, Flores voted "Yes" on Senate Bill 2040 (Florida's immigration bill) in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which passed with a majority vote with the exception of Senators Arthenia Joyner and Oscar Braynon who voted "No".[8] Many community members in attendance at the hearing were opposed to the bill [9] This vote followed 8 hours of debate in previous committee meetings dedicated to the immigration issue.[10] Senator Flores opposes any Arizona-like immigration bills and reiterated this during an interview in which she said she would not be supportive of "anything like an Arizona-like bill."[11] Her district has a high number of Hispanic voters (71.5%).[12]

Prior to being elected a State Representative, she spent two years advocating for university students in her district as Director of State Relations for Florida International University. She continues working for Florida International University to promote the university’s civic and community partnerships, by serving as the Director of Community Partnerships.